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Rabat – Corine, a worker at the Patient Care department of the Quenet Torrent Institute in Spain, has brought to light the heartbreaking case of a Moroccan man stranded in Spain.
The medical worker launched a Go Fund Me campaign to raise money to help the Moroccan cancer patient to continue his treatment in the best conditions.
Lahoucine suffers from peritoneal pseudomyxoma, a very rare type of cancer. A father of 3, he went to Spain in March to undergo surgery.
The 42-year old man from Agadir landed in Barcelona. He is one of the best workers in his field, and was recently promoted to workshop supervisor.
In February, Lahoucine’s manager contacted the Spanish institute to submit Lahoucine’s case as he needed “urgently a cytoreductive surgery with HIPEC (hyperthermic intraperitoneal chemotherapy) to treat a peritoneal pseudomyxoma.”
Corine said that Lahoucine is loved by his coworkers and superiors “thanks to his loyalty and work ethics.”
The high level surgery required € 40,000.
Lahoucine’s family and friends agreed to send him to the institute, and generously helped to cover the costs.
“At this point I can only admire the generosity of all his colleagues doing extra financial individual efforts in order to, together, reunite the amount of the surgery plus travel expenses,” Corine wrote.
Lahoucine travelled to Barcelona, Spain with his friend on March 6 for the operation on March 7.
His friend, however, had to return to Morocco the day after but Lahoucine stayed in the intensive care unit.
Lahoucine’s friend was due to return to Spain on March 20 to help Lahoucine get back home.
However, the surgery had not been enough and Lahoucine needed a second operation.
“During the operation, surgeons couldn’t do anything else but stating the surgery would necessarily be done in two phases: Removing all affected organs at once would have jeopardized the survival of the patient,” Corene explained.
The second phase includes a second operation, as well as another € 40,000.
The COVID-19 crisis made it nearly impossible to find a solution for Lahoucine, particularly since friend could not be able to come back to Barcelona due to closed borders and lockdown.
The situation got even worse as Moroccohas still not been able to repatriate its citizens stranded abroad, estimated at 32,000 to date.
“This adverse chain of events completely changed my world and I found myself being the only contact for Lahoucine, stuck in this difficult situation, in a foreign country, far from family and friends, not knowing the language.”
Corine has managed to raise € 1,675 from 25 donors. She hopes to raise € 32,000 to save Lahoucine.
